What is an Utility Model?

Large sectors of today's economy are changing radically, and rapidly. Areas such as the information technology industry or the market for biotechnology are fuelled largely by short-term innovations. Our reaction has been the introduction of the utility model. The protection we provide in this sector applies to innovations, such as relate also to computer programs, for example, which present less inventive effort than in the case of a patent. The period of protection in this case is restricted to a maximum of ten years. As an application involves no testing for novelty, the time required to process a utility model application is significantly shorter than for a patent application.